This is about work

and all my stained tee shirts

I was recently unemployed for three months. Whenever I look back on my time spent unemployed, I think about all the things I could have done that I didn’t do. I think about everything I wish I’d done with my time. I have unemployment amnesia, a common disease in which the non-working person stares blankly at the wall and later cannot remember a single thing they did while unemployed. I let each day pass accomplishing only a fraction of what I’d hoped for that day. Work provides balance and structure; work ironically affords me more time to do things like write, because work makes me feel like my time and energy is precious and limited. But that does not change how much I hate to work, at least most days of the week. That does not change how much I wish work were not a mandatory part of life. I know that I struggle without work both emotionally and financially. But of course, I wonder if that is only because work is a mandatory part of survival. I wonder if I should live somewhere I can afford to work less. “But then I would be so bored,” I think, because New York is a city full of opportunity. New York City is fun. I want to live in the land of fun. I want to live in the land of opportunity. And at the same time, I don’t want to have to do anything at all. And as far as I’m concerned, this is the predicament of all living, working people.

But there’s more to it than that. Work helps me feel like a person in the world. It allows me to see myself as a human being, which is funny and a little ironic, seeing as almost every job I’ve ever had has been particularly dehumanizing. I long for work when I’m not working. I long for the opportunity to connect with new people, to talk to people, to get out of my house, to get out of my head. But when I am at work I miss my home. I miss my dog and I miss my partner. I miss everyone who is doing anything aside from work. I envy people who work from home. I envy people who freelance. I envy people who travel for work. I envy directors. I envy the mailman. Do I? I don’t know. But I often find myself walking down the street thinking, what if I became one of those Amazon truck drivers? And then I think to myself, you’re fucking crazy, haha. And then I think, why is that so crazy, what’s so wrong with the Amazon truck drivers, huh? And then I’m like shut up you stupid ass crazy ass bitch.

I work at a little shop that sells beautiful objects. Art objects, functional objects. I bike to the Lower East Side on an e-bike with my poor-person Citibike membership. I look out across the water as I blast over the Manhattan Bridge. I see people on jet skis. I see people on ferries. I see a slow-moving boat hauling—well—a boatload of trash across the water. I see the sun. I see myself, smiling cinematically. Then I imagine myself busting my kneecaps and getting run over by a horde of ruthless citi-cyclists because I missed a pothole while thinking to myself, “damn, this is so New York!”

One day while I was at the little shop, I was tasked with the project of pricing everything in the store. Some items had already been marked with tiny letters written on tiny stickers bearing barely legible, not-so-tiny prices. As I went to pick up a hefty, delicate turquoise jar with coral trim, the lid slipped from my fingers and fell to the shelf, knocking down another jar on its way and shattering them both. I looked up the price of each jar in our system. One jar costs $850, the other $500. I ran to the work computer. The air conditioner groaned. My palms were sweating. “I have some pretty bad news,” I messaged my boss on G-chat. “I broke not one, but two of the jars,” I confessed. “I genuinely understand if you need to fire me,” I pleaded. “Don’t worry about it,” my boss replied promptly. “Accidents happen!”

I think it’s funny and a little cinematic, like the image of me blasting across the Manhattan Bridge on the verge of busting my kneecaps. I often feel like I really can’t have nice things. Before I got hired for this job, I asked my boss if there was a dress code. "Re: dress code,” he replied to my email, “mostly the vibe is ‘come as you are’ - with the caveat that you shouldn't wear stained or dirty clothes.  Otherwise - wear what makes you feel most alive. MORE TO COME, go team, G,” he signed off. Great, I thought. Easy enough! No. Not easy enough. Every morning when I get ready to leave for work, I put on my silly little clothes only to look in the mirror and find any of the following on my shirt and pants: paint, dirt, sauce, grease, mystery stain, you name it. The task of leaving the house wearing specifically non-stained clothing is only a step below dressing for a wedding: both dysphoric and startling. How does this happen? I ask myself. And what on earth am I doing every day that my clothes look like this? Better yet, how is it that I just washed these, and they’re still fucking dirty? The dirt of my soul, the dirt of my clothes. Something something metaphor symbol something something.

It’s a testament to my nature and a symbol of my destiny. It’s like my clothes are looking back as I hold them up in front of me, inspecting them with squinted eyes, wondering if I need to take out my miniature travel iron and scald them with enough time to catch the train, thinking, “you’ll never amount to anything!” Okay, maybe that's dramatic. I think I might be smack dab in the middle of amounting to something. But I have never, ever been able to get it together with the stain-free lifestyle. It’s impossible! I look at the Instagram profiles of sporty dykes who wear matching Adidas sets as fashion and every time I try to do the same, I look like I’m on my way to Grocery Outlet. What do those lesbians have that I don’t? I think I might know the answer. (Hint: it’s money.)

I’m not saying this to rag on myself. I promise. I love myself and I love my style. But I do think it’s funny that no matter how hard I try, I cannot, for the life of me, keep a valuable object alive. And I cannot help but wonder if rich people are better taught how to take care of nice things. I grew up in an environment where there weren’t any nice things, and when there were, you were probably going to lose them, so there was no point in getting very attached to them. My style of non-attachment has worked out so well that any chance at sentimentality is shot completely.

This morning, as my partner and I walked to a basketball court where we would throw the ball for our dog, I talked to them about my job at the little shop. “I like my little job at the shop,” I say. “This is something I like about you,” my partner says at one point, “you’re not afraid to work.” I think about this. I know what they mean and I know they are right. I think about my dad, who delivered pizza for Domino’s until he got sick and died. I don’t know when he stopped delivering those pizzas, but I know he did it until he couldn’t. He met opportunity with a sense of gratitude I have adopted myself; a sense of gratitude that feels, at times, less like a blessing and more like a curse. There is something so inherently degrading, sometimes, about being a working-class person who desperately wants anyone to give them anything. Usually, anything ain’t much.

Like my dad, getting any job fills me with pride, no matter how low the fruit may hang. There is this very American, working-class thing of being so grateful to work. The American dream and its freak-ass promises. We all feel like opportunity is something to be so grateful for. Even the wealthiest people I know (and don’t know, for that matter) want to lay the same claim: they can’t believe their luck, their success. I’ve always found that odd. How can you not believe you got something that you were always certain, deep down, you were going to get? But I guess it’s just a part of the culture. No matter how much of a given it is that a rich person will be rich, that a person with a successful family will be successful, or that a person with nepotism will be famous, everyone seems to profess this unwavering dedication to “opportunity.”

I envy these people and wonder if they feel freer from the feeling of hating work but needing work. I wonder if they work because it’s fun and they’d be bored otherwise. I wonder if work, to them, is just a funny, silly little hobby. Anyway, my partner praises me for my work ethic, which I love, obviously, but then we get to talking about the concept of work ethics in general. We talk about how disgusting and disturbing it is. “The whole idea of a work ethic is so bogus to me,” I say. But then I start thinking about people we know who seem to have no motivation to work whatsoever; how their lack of motivation can be frustrating, somehow, to witness. I know this is unfair. I know this does not align with my values. But why can’t they just work? We wonder. I realize, then, that I’m being a hater because I’ve never felt free enough to not try my hardest, no matter how much I know it’s all a big fat steaming crock of shit. Do I envy you because you’ve surrendered to something I’ve always clung to? Do I judge you because you’ve relaxed into hating work? I think we all know the answer to that question.

As I sit in the shop, passers-by peer into the windows, inspecting me at my little desk and the beautiful objects that surround me. I wonder what they think. I adjust my posture. I try to smile and wonder if they can tell that I’m smiling. They turn and walk away, towards Canal or Broadway. I look back at my computer, then around the shop. I take in the objects around me, thinking of all the things I cannot afford.

Thanks for reading my Substack this week! Here’s a little treat:

The best $5 you can spend on the Lower East Side

An album worth loving

Plus a playlist

When inflation’s a bitch, the $55 massage is on your side

LOL